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HARDWOOD RECORD 



Octol>er 23. 1921 



Who^s Who in Woodworking 



iCotiniicd from page 21) 



Charles E. Rigley Carle C. Conway 



furniture making for a half a century with this same company 

 which he now heads; and called young, because though now seventy- 

 three years of age, his heart still sings with the courage and 

 enterprise of youth and today he is a stronger man and a bigger 

 man than he ever was before. 



On July 4 of this year, Mr. Eigley celebrated the fiftieth anni- 

 versary of his connection with the Estey Manufacturing Companj-, 

 the one and only job he has ever had, a job which carried him 

 from the humble position of decorator in a struggling little plant 

 to the ownership of a magnificent $350,000 factory, turning out 

 in great quantities a line of furniture that is known throughout 

 the country for its splendid quality. He has caused the "Estey 

 Standard" trade-mark to become familiar wherever in the coun- 

 try furniture is bought and sold — and it is a mark that carries 

 confidence. 



The success of the Estey Manufacturing Company is largely 

 Mr. Eigley 's success, the careers of the company and the man 

 being inseparably combined. When Mr. Estey joined the company 

 to apply the painted decorations to the furniture then being 

 made, the organization was known as Estey & Tooley and the 

 manufacturing facilities consisted of a sawmill at Six Mile Creek, 

 or West Haven, six miles north of Owosso, where the raw mate- 

 rial was cut, and a plant in Detroit where the furniture was 

 actually built. 



Owing to the heavy expense and inconvenience of this system, 

 made so by primitive freight and mail service, the Estey & Tooley 

 company went bankrupt in a very short time. Managing to bor- 

 row some $16,000 at 10 per cent interest from his uncle, Jacob 

 Estey, of organ making fame, D. M. Estey, the owner, reorganized 

 the firm under the name of the Owosso Furniture Company, with 

 the name of his rich uncle appearing as proprietor. 



In the meantime the ambitious young painter had been using 

 his nights to take a business course and when the firm he worked 

 for needed a young man in the office and went to a Detroit college 

 to get one, Charles E. Eigley was recommended. When his sur- 

 prised employer went back to the factory and offered to take him 

 into the oflSce at the munificient sum of $30 per month, the young 

 fellow accepted, in spite of the fact that he was then earning $20 

 a week as decorator. It so happened that he could see farther 

 than his nose and he knew that this office work would give him 

 chances to climb that the other job never would. 



After young Eigley entered the office of the firm the old ineffi- 

 cient plan of manufacture that had originally caused the break 

 was continued. It remained for this young man to detect the 

 insurmountable weakness of this system and he suggested and 

 urged that the entire outfit be moved to Owosso. This was done in 

 187.5, and four years after this move the company was incorpor- 

 ated as the Estey Manufacturing Company with Jacob Estey still 

 holding control, D. M. Estey president and treasurer, and Mr. 

 Eigley vice-president and secretary. 



Following this the Estey Manufacturing Company, which means Mr. 

 Eigley, went through a series of reverses at various periods of years 

 that would have broken the spirit of any but a man of extraor- 

 dinary tenacity and courage. These reverses consisted of another busi- 

 ness failure, the complete destruction by fire of the original unit of the 

 Owosso plant, and later the total annihilation of the remaining unit, 

 known as "Factory B, " by a maverick tornado that wandered through 

 Owosso on November 11, 1911. By this time Mr. Eigley was sole 

 owner of the Estey Manufacturing Company and this terrible loss was 

 all his. 



But the mangled remains of Factory B were cleared away and in 

 another year, Charles E. Eigley was again manufacturing fur- 



identified with the piano industry as an officer and director in 

 the Kimball Company, Chicago. 



Mr. Conway was graduated from Yale University in 1899 and 

 went into business with his father in the same year. Associated 

 with him was his brother, Earle E. Conway. 



In 1905 Mr. Conway and his brother purchased a controlling 

 interest in the' Hallet & Davis Piano Co., later acquiring the 

 entire interest. In 1907 the New York office in Forty-second street 

 was opened. The Conway Company with a capitalization of 

 $3,500,000 was incorporated for the purpose of acting as a holding 

 company and also for the manufacture of the Conway piano. 



In 1910 the Conway boys acquired an interest in the Simplex 

 Player Action Co., and about this time the National Piano Man- 

 ufacturing Co., comprising the Briggs Piano Co., Merrill Piano Co. 

 and the Norris & Hyde Piano Co., was taken over. 



The various interests which have been added to the original 

 purchase of the Hallet & Davis company, constitute what is known 

 in the piano trade as the "Conway Industries." The capitaliza- 

 tion of these industries is over $4,500,000 and the home office is 

 at 146 Boylston street, Boston. 



Mr. Conway has interests outside of the piano industry, being 

 a director in the Continental Can Company and also in the Vulcan 

 Detinning Compan}-. 



He lives in New York and is a member of the University, Yale, 

 Sleepy Hollow and Brae Burn Clubs. 



At the last annual convention of the National Association of 

 Piano Manufacturers, Mr. Conway was elected president. This 

 was a well deserved tribute, not only to his popularity in the trade, 

 but to his remarkable ability to vision the needs of the industry. 

 Just after the war Mr. Conway made a European trip, during 

 which he visited practically all of the countries involved in the 

 World War. His survey of political and economic conditions there 

 was of such a valuable nature that the New York daily papers 

 devoted several columns to the story. ' Mr. Conway is a man of 

 keen perceptions, remarkable ability to sense instantly a business 

 situation and possesses force of charactei' to an extraordinary 

 degree. He is one of the most genial, likable men in the entire 

 piano industry. He is a great believer in obtaining immediate 

 action, not only on the problems of his own businesSj-but on those 

 which confront the trade in such trying periods^fls those of the 

 past twelve months. The piano trade as a \rht)Ie'Ts deeply indebted 

 to him. 



niture and in a finer, more modern plant than he had ever before 

 had. In this last phoenix-like rise from the ashes of defeat, Mr. 

 Eigley had the help and encouragement of his two sons, Charles 

 E. Rigley, Jr., and James G. Eigley, who are possessed of the 

 same dauntless optimism and "never-say-die" spirit that has 

 made it impossible for any misfortune to knock their father down 

 and keep him down. 



On the day of his fiftieth anniversary, last July fourth, Mr. 

 Eigley remarked that ten years ago when he rebuilt his plant 

 after having been virtually "wiped off the map," he was $98,000 

 in debt, but now he doesn't owe any man a single dollar, and he 

 has a plant worth not less than $350,000 any day. Furthermore 

 he has a reputation that is worth a great deal more than his plant, 

 and he is still seventy-three years "young." He is as ready as 

 ever to take a fall out of Fate, if Fate hasu 't been convinced 

 by this time that he can 't be beat. 



